Kenya Farewell

This will be my last posting to this blog. I had not planned to leave Kenya for home until May 23, but events dictated otherwise. On Friday, May 11, my 96 year old father-in-law was admitted to the hospital with serious kidney and heart issues. Rick and his brother flew down to Texas on the 13th to be with him and their mom. I was concerned enough that I got my tickets changed so I could fly out of Nairobi on the 14th, arriving in Houston on the 15th. Rick’s dad is not doing well and we’re not sure where it all goes from here.

In any case, my recent sojourn in Kenya is done. But, if we’re sure of anything, Rick and I know we will not wait long before we return to Kenya and to Hekima Place.

Kenyan Schools

View of Lockwood from parking lot

Let me tell you about the secondary education experience in Kenya. I can’t even imagine an American kid surviving the demands of a Kenyan high school. So I’ll use Lockwood as a base case as it seems to take a relatively liberal approach. It also is an attractive and well maintained property with nice landscaping.

All of their belongings have to be inventoried by a matron before they enter the school

4 of our girls in front of Reception

Weekday schedule at Lockwood:
4 - 4:15 am wake up and prepare for the day
4:45 am begin study and go to class
6 - 6:30 am breakfast
6:30 - 11 am classes
11 - 11:20 am tea and buttered bread
11:20 am -12:30 pm class
12:30 to 1 pm lunch break
1 -2 pm classes again
2 - 2:20 pm tea
2:20 - 4 pm classes
6 - 6:30 supper
7-9 pm the equivalent of study hall.
Lights out is 9:30 pm.

The schedule, as you can see, offers little free time - by design. At Lockwood there are 8-9 classes per term. On Saturday they get a break. Classes are only from 8 am to 1 pm. Other schools may require 10-11 classes per term up to junior year when they may select classes and drop down to 8 or 9 per term.

After classes on Saturday, the girls are responsible for a general cleaning of the dorm, sweeping, mopping, cleaning the showers and toilets. They may also use this time to wash their clothes - by hand. Sunday afternoon they clean classrooms and may wash their clothes. Entertainment on Saturday evening may be TV, a movie, or music and dancing (girls only). Sunday morning there is study time and worship. Sunday afternoon is strictly organized as well. Sunday evening lights out is at 9 pm. There are no mixed sex socials.

The swimming pool

Two afternoons per week after class Lockwood offers sports. The school has a field  for field hockey as well as a soccer field and an olympic size swimming pool. They are looking for a swimming coach and hope to be able to hold competitions there. On two other afternoons per week the girls attend club meetings. Wildlife clubs are popular as is Girl Scouts. Excel school has clubs or sports on most weekdays, but they only have one sport field and no swimming pool. St. Tito has clubs (a club meeting may entail cleaning a classroom) or sports only two days per week and no entertainment at all and only rare club outings. And at St. Tito classes run from 5:30 am to 5 pm, dinner at 6 pm with 2 hours of enforced study hall after dinner.

Lockwood sounds like it has superior food to other schools I’ve heard about. They serve rice for most meals, but it is accompanied by meat some days and they have fresh vegetables from their shamba. At some meals during the week githeri is served. They also have a diary farm and so have plenty of milk for the twice daily British style tea (milk, a bit of tea, and very sweet). They even bake their own bread for the buttered bread served with the tea. On one weekend night they have chicken and on Wednesdays they serve chiapati - our girls grinned broadly when they heard about that!

Compared to other schools, this food sounds pretty good. I was told that at Excel, almost all meals consist of cooked cabbage and ugali with very occasional githeri, no meat. The girls do get milk in their tea for some protein. From what I’ve been told, other boarding schools serve an equally monotonous and nutritionally deficient diet.

Then there’s the matter of discipline - usually physical punishment. I will be interested to hear what the approach to discipline at Lockwood is. Kate pulled one girl out of Baraka school, which has an excellent academic reputation, because the child came home one weekend with bloody knees from having been made (along with her entire grade) to “walk” on their knees, to class, meals, everything for an whole day as punishment for some of the students talking in class. And this at a school where the area in between dorms, classrooms and dining halls is rough rocks set in hard packed clay soil. At Shiners, discipline is often caning (beating with a cane), in spite of the fact that that practice has officially been outlawed in Kenya.

A lot of what goes on in the schools is a reflection of the desperation parents and educators feel for the children to ‘get ahead’ and succeed. Jobs are in very short supply in Kenya and unemployment is high. Somehow they seem to think that physical punishment for misbehavior or for poor grades will make their children work harder and that cramming all these classes down their throats will mean they learn more. What I see is a lot of burn out and shutting down. Also, a lot of what passes for education here is ‘teaching to the test’ - rote memorization with little in the way of real understanding of the subject matter. Eighth graders and seniors have to take national exams. For 8th graders, their results on the exams will determine whether they can get into the best secondary schools. For seniors, their exam scores will dictate whether they will get one of the few spots in the public universities that are cheaper and better than the private colleges. Only about a third of the students whose scores qualify them actually secure a spot at a public university. As you might imagine, cheating and bribery is rampant as parents with more resources seek to insure their child gets one of the coveted university appointments.

Kate's Back!

Kate's back home again after an incredible fundraising trip to the US. She was supposed to arrive Wednesday night after leaving Pittsburgh on Tuesday afternoon. But her flight from New York to Amsterdam was delayed by a paperwork snafu and she ended up missing her connection to Nairobi. So she had an overnight flight to Amsterdam and then had to spend the day in the airport before flying out on Kenya Air at 9 pm for another overnight flight! She arrived back at Hekima Place at about 8:15 am, utterly exhausted after two overnight flights separated by almost 12 hours hanging around an airport. But in typical Kate fashion, she kept motoring on until she finally gave in to a nap about 2 pm. Everyone here, especially me, is thrilled to have her home. A lesser person would have collapsed long before!

Lockwood Ho!

If Life is what happens when you are planning something else, Hekima Place is Life! On Wednesday I had planned to go in the morning with Brendah, the newly hired social worker mum, to meet with Teresia and Bridget’s mother and the DCO (District Children’s Officer) in Ngong. But at the morning staff meeting, it became clear there would have to be a change of plans. One of the mums had left for the morning to take her own child back to school. We needed a mum to escort two girls to the bus stop that would get them back to Kambui school because they were first year students who hadn’t yet learned how to negotiate the route by public transit. And the five girls who were transferring schools to go to Lockwood needed a woman to accompany them for the check in process. Sophie didn’t need to be gone all day because she still had her real job (accounting) to do. If all this sounds confusing, it was! The upshot was that I ended up being the one to go with the five to Lockwood and Sophie was again pressed into service along with Brendah to meet with the DCO and Teresia and Bridget’s mom in Ngong.

The trip to Lockwood (near Nakuru) was an all-day affair as it is a 2 1/2 hour drive to the north under the best of conditions. The van was packed to the gills what with suitcases, five foot lockers, five foam mattresses and miscellaneous other stuff for each, plus the five girls and Brendah and Sophie in the back, me in front and Kinyua in the driver’s seat. Kinyua and I could barely hear the girls in the back of the van with all their stuff in between! We left about 10 am and I expected to be back to Hekima in time for dinner. Hah! We had to stop in Ngong to drop off Sophie and Brendah. Then we were further delayed because we had to purchase some last minute items the school required the girls to have, washcloths, sky-blue bed covers and two sky-blue pillow cases apiece. And one of the girls had yet to “clear” her previous school so that had to be taken care of in Nakuru.

Typical mud side street

In Ngong we turned down a mud side street and stopped before one of the myriad tiny storefronts. The first store we stopped at didn’t have the required bedcovers and pillow cases, but the proprietor was able to direct us to a tiny shop a few storefronts down that had them sandwiched in between all the other merchandise that was crammed into the small space. These little storefronts are the face of most commerce that takes place in Kenya.

Inside the tiny storefronts.

After the shopping was taken care of, our travels truly got under way. And it was quite a beautiful and interesting drive. Once we got past Nairobi, the highway to Nakuru was surprisingly good. For about 15 minutes the road followed along the very edge of the escarpment above the Great Rift Valley. From the road, there was an amazing view of the earth appearing to fall away steeply to the west revealing the immense vastness of the valley. At Hekima, we are right on the escarpment but the appearance is quite different because the Ngong Hills and other hills cut into the valley at jagged intervals making it a less dramatic visual transition.

Along the road and occasionally in the road, we saw troops of baboons and herds of zebras that didn’t appear to be associated with any wildlife preserve or park. In one place we laughed at what appeared to be a mixed herd of zebras, cows and goats.

We drove past beautiful Mt. Longonot, a volcano at the base of which a chasm has recently opened up causing concern that an eruption was impending. However, they have now decided it was just soft soil shifting because of the rains. Mt Longonot is near Devil’s Canyon where six teenagers on a church outing were recently and tragically killed in a flash flood. Beyond Longomont, there was a large lovely lake, Lake Naivashi, ringed by mountains and one of the few fresh water lakes in Kenya.

Nyama choma eateries

We were near Lake Naivashi about 1 pm when we decided we should stop for lunch since it was clear we wouldn’t get the girls to the school and checked in in time for them to have anything to eat. Judging by the number and type of ‘butcheries’ and eateries along the road, the area is apparently known for its nyama choma (literally roast meat). All the butcheries in Kenya have whole dressed carcasses hanging in the front window so you can see how fresh what you’re buying is. Although beef is now included in the designation, traditional nyama choma is grilled goat meat - and that’s what all the eateries appeared to be offering along with grilled chicken.

The well oiled cutting board/dinner plate

Kinyua pulled the van into the parking area of one he had previously visited and asked everyone what they wanted to order. Four of the girls ordered the grilled chicken and Kinyua, one of the girls and I decided to share goat. I had’t yet had the chance to try traditional nyama choma so this was my opportunity to eat the genuine article. I figured the goat was fresh and freshly grilled so that was ok - it was the way it was served that put me off. A butcher brought out a whole grilled hind quarter and proceeded to hack the meat off with a large old butchers knife onto an ancient and none too clean looking wooden cutting board. I could almost see the bacteria swarming all over it. Did I mention the intestines? Uh, never mind. We were left to eat the meat with our fingers from the cutting board as a common serving dish. Greasy French fries and a fresh tomato/onion dish accompanied the meat. In spite of my hunger and joy in eating unusual things, I might have given it a pass but I knew that waiting for me back at Karibu House there was Cipro (wonder antibiotic; good for almost anything bacterial that ails your intestinal tract; beloved of all travelers to third world countries) and Sherry, a nurse experienced with this stuff. So I made the calculated decision that I would survive the experience, come whatever. The goat was extremely tasty, if a bit gristly and, if I tried really hard to ignore the cutting board, I quite enjoyed it. Now I can add nyama choma to the list of exotic gastronomic delights I’ve experienced and survived in my lifetime. So far, I’ve luckily not needed Sherry’s ministrations or the Cipro.

Inside a Kenyan butcherie

Following lunch, we got the one cleared from her school and all five checked in and moved into their dormitories at Lockwood. By the time all was done that needed doing and Kenyua and I climbed back in the van for the return drive to Hekima Place, it was 5 pm and it had started to rain. We finally arrived back here by 8:30 pm, having fielded phone calls from Sophie, Mum Evy and Mum Helen worrying about where we were.

This entry is already far too long, so you’ll just have to learn about Lockwood and the entire Kenyan secondary school experience in the next entry.

Back to School!

Morning view from Karibu porch

It was a beautiful morning in the Ngong Hills, in spite of the fact that it had rained off and on all day yesterday and most of the night. Yesterday, Sherry washed clothes and tried to get them dry in between rain showers. Finally she gave up and Dave rigged a clothes line from the Karibu House hall into their bathroom. So they enjoyed a movie last night with a background of wet clothes hanging from the inside clothesline.

Off to school!

Waiting to board the bus in uniforms and gum boots

Today was also the first day of the new term for the girls. They were all up early and ready to go. There are too many of them to all go in the bus at once so they went in two busloads, one leaving at 6:45 and the second at 7:00 am. Everyone was carefully pressed and polished for their first day. But the effect was somewhat ruined by the gum boots they all wore in case the bus couldn’t make it down the road to the school and they would have to walk part of the way. Sherry, Avril and I were all out there to take pictures and wave farewell to send them on their way.

I had to take four of the girls to a clinic in Karen this the morning and expected to be back here by lunch. So before we left, I ran two loads of laundry, expecting to get them on the line to dry by 1 pm. However, as these things are wont to do, the simple trip to a clinic in Karen morphed into a multitude of errands to make the most efficient use of the expensive petrol as possible. So in addition to the clinic run, there were payment checks to be delivered, money to be deposited in the bank, a secondary girl to be delivered to a spot where she could get a matatu to her school, picking up of one of our girls who starting a law internship and delivering her to the hostel where she will be living, supplies to be picked up on the way. It became clear that we would not be back to Hekima for lunch, so I bought lunch for the clinic girls and Kinyua.

Mudflow on Ngong Road

On the way, I took some photos of the mud that has engulfed the town of Ngong. Water flooding over the road is scary, but mud flows are even scarier. One evening our accountant was returning home and two cars ahead of her were washed away in the mud. She was terrified it would happen to her! Due to lack of resource management on the part of the government and stripping the trees from the hills for firewood, there's nothing to prevent erosion or divert the mud once it starts flowing. The government has paid contractors to plant trees in the hills, which sounds good in theory. But what happens is they plant trees and put a fence around them, collect the money and that's the end of it. The contractor has his money and takes no more responsibility for the little trees. The locals cut the fences to let their herds in to graze, no one waters the saplings during the dry season and they mostly die. So there are many fenced areas up in the hills with only grass and scrub growing in them. Still nothing to revent erosion.

Humphreys relaxing amid indoor laundry

After all was said and done, we got back here barely before 4 pm. By then, the sunny day had turned cloudy and rain threatened. I tried to hang my laundry on the line, but as the sky got darker and darker, I gave up and gathered everything off the line and brought it inside. So tonite my laundry is decorating Karibu House as the Humphrey’s did last night. I hope it is all dry by tomorrow morning, but I’m not holding my breath!

Ngong Hills Hiking

Ever since we got here, we’ve been wanting to go hiking in the Ngong Hills - the trail starts only 5 minutes up the road from our gate. But we’ve been discouraged with tales of wild animals and evil men to be encountered on that trail. However, we’d learned that there is a large group of Kenyans who hike the trail starting 7 to 7:30 am on Saturday and Sunday mornings and we were invited to join them. Strength in numbers and all that. So this morning the Humphreys and I got up early and headed for the trail about 7:20 am. When we got to the trailhead, there were no cars there. We thought maybe there was a parking area further along but after hiking a ways up the trail we had seen no one.

Moses and his youngest daughter

A Maasai man called out to us from his house, telling us what we’d heard before, about the scary animals and evil men. He strongly suggested we not go without a guide. We inquired what a guide cost (about $12) and how to get one. There was a telephone number posted he said we could call, but he also offered to guide us himself. So we took him up on his offer since he was already there and whoever was on the other end of the telephone was not. Turns out his name is Moses, he makes jewelry from recycled brass, and he consulted on a book about wildflowers and other flora and fauna of the area. An interesting guy. Sherry asked if he had a herd and he said a few animals. He was rebuilding after he lost all his herd in drought about 5 years ago. He has 3 children, two girls and a boy and a wife named Phyllis. Nice guy, lovely family.

Foggy landscape

It was a beautiful morning. When we started out it was sunny, but we could see clouds low over the hills to the west and as we hiked, we could tell they were coming our way. When it came, it lent an otherworldly air to the landscape. We were in and out of the clouds/fog for the rest of the hike. It had rained hard most of the night last night, and the trail was muddy, but along the ridges, most of the rain drains off, so it was not nearly as bad as lower areas. We hiked steadily uphill stopping briefly only twice to rest until we reached the summit of the prosaically named “Hill 4” by 9:30 am.  Hill 4 is the highest of the peaks at (according to Moses) 7896 ft. I took a photo in the direction of Nairobi from the top, but it was a joke - all the photo shows is fog.

The Humphreys and Pat at the summit of Hill 4

As for the animals, the only ones we saw were domestic ones. Moses said there were no lions, but there were chetahs, hyenas, cape buffalo, and leopards. Anyway enough to warrant some caution. We never did see the group we had hoped to join, either going up or coming back. Moses thought they were discouraged from coming out because there were a couple of viscous attacks by bad men last weekend.

The fog begins to lift

On the way back down, we encountered a large group of children and their adult guardians. The kids were from an orphanage I hadn’t heard of and they were planning to hike from Corner Baridi to the town of Ngong. We later learned that in getting to the summit of Hill 4 we were half way to Ngong already. The group of children were accompanied by men dressed in military fatigues and carrying serious weapons - automatic rifles! All Moses had was a large bladed farm implement stuffed in his belt.

Maasai cattle foreground, Kiserian background

The clouds began to lift, and we had a clear view of Kiserian down below. With the interplay of the clouds and light on the green landscape, it seemed indeed enchanted hiking.

Moses and his jewelry

We ended our hike at Moses house where he showed us his jewelry. His stuff was quite nice and we all bought some. He also had copies of the wildflower book in which he is mentioned as consultant that he signed and sold to us for 40% of the price in Nakamat or Tusky stores. It had turned out to be a pretty profitable day for Moses and we had a great time and made an interesting friend.

Another Day, Another Adventure

Gotta love it when warthogs have the right of way!

Friday was a somewhat slow day around Hekima for a change. We took the secondary girls who had to back to school Thursday. The rest of the girls wouldn’t return until Saturday. So Friday morning Rebecca from the Kenyan Board of Trustees came and picked me up for ‘coffee’ around 10:15 am. ‘Coffee’ turned out to be a whole day affair. First we stopped at the Nairobi National Park on Langatta Road for a 45 minute nature walk. The National Park is very large, but the nature walk is kinda like a very pleasant stroll through a natural habitat zoo with rhinos, baboons, chetahs, leopards, lions, monkeys, zebras (unusual ‘white’ ones!), cape buffalo, etc.

"White" zebras - new one to me!

My good friend, Rebecca

 It turns out that Rebecca, a Kenyan, a college professor and wife of a Presbyterian pastor, got her Master of Letters degree in Aberdeen, Scotland. And while living there all alone, she was befriended by many, charming person that she is. Among her friends were some who came and took her out for the day to drive about, see the sights, and stop at interesting places. She well remembers those kindnesses and returns the favor to folks like me who are working here in Kenya without a lot of chances to take a break. Rebecca, I should tell you, had major surgery in early March and today was the first time she’d driven a car since the surgery. What a sweetheart!

The Central Market

After leaving the National Park, we drove into the heart of Nairobi to check out the Central Market. It is a fairly typical mall (with the open air central food court, African style) except that the upper level is a canopied open-air crafts market, the largest in Kenya. Before we went to the market, we stopped for croissants and tea at the Amadeus coffee shop where we had a long congenial conversation. Then we moved on to the market where I bought a nativity created in a gourd with designs carved into the outside and two beautiful baskets. I got a pretty good deal because Rebecca did the bargaining for me. All in all, an exceptional way to spend the day with an exceptional friend.

The view out our windshield of the 2-lane road we were on

The real adventure started when we left the market at 3 pm. We both thought that would be plenty early to head back and avoid the heavy traffic and the rains. Wrong!!! Pretty quickly we got into the traffic which only got worse. For the most part, we kept moving, although very very slowly. By 5:45 pm we had only made it as far as Kamura between Rongai and Kiserian and the line of cars and trucks had come to a complete halt. Water was rushing in torrents along both sides of the road. The (usually dry) creek at the bottom of the hill had overflowed with runoff from the Ngong Hills and the cars couldn’t move across it without risking of being washed away.

View from inside the car

We started calling everyone we both knew to find out if there was a better way to get to Kiserian and thus Hekima Place, even if we had to backtrack quite a distance. Reports from everywhere around were that there wasn’t any better way to go as it seemed all area traffic was gridlocked by the water and that the best thing to do was sit tight and wait for the floodwater to recede. So we sat there in the car chatting until 8 pm before our line of cars finally started slowly moving. Even so, it was nerve wracking when we finally had our turn to drive across the bridge. Water was still surging over the roadbed and the car in front of us showed some sign of being washed to the left. Rebecca suggested I close my eyes and she’d tell me when we were out of it - but of course I didn’t, couldn’t. We both breathed a deep sigh of relief when her car cleared the worst of the water. Welcome to Kenya and it’s lack of infrastructure or anything resembling a sufficient water drainage system!

The girls eye their transport across the river

Sherry and Kinyua had their own experience with high water the previous evening when they took 3 girls to Excel to enroll there for the first time. On the road approaching the school, the bridge had washed out so the only way to get to the school was through the river, swollen with recent rains. They had to leave the Hekima vehicle on one side and drive across in a small Land Rover sent over by the school. The Land Rover was small enough that the girls and their things had to go across in separate trips. Sherry and Kinyua were required to accompany them to get them checked in. When the two of them tried to return to their Hekima vehicle, they got high-centered coming back across the river - stuck in the middle of the flood! Sherry tried to stay dry in the car while Kinyua and a number of other men rocked the SUV back and forth to get it off the rock. Sherry had visions of being swept away in the raging water! What a way to celebrate your birthday!

View from inside the car in the middle of the river

They didn’t get back to Hekima until 9 pm. That’s 9 pm on Sherry’s birthday! Dave and daughter Avril were worried sick when Sherry didn’t show up by dinnertime. And all the Hekima girls were disappointed because there was supposed to have been birthday cake and ice cream to after dinner.  Sherry finally got to celebrate her birthday and the girls got their cake and ice cream last night, but of course I missed it all because I was stranded by high water!